To go with the evening gown, there’s a little clutch bag, but I confess the dress is really the fun part of today’s post.

I enjoy drawing evening dresses, but after a while I get tired of the strapless simple gowns. I find I am attracted to evening gowns with interesting shapes or draping. I really want a dress that I think would be fun to draw, as much as anything else. I totally realize that “fun to draw” doesn’t mean “flattering to wear”, but I am completely cool with that.

Paper dolls, as I have often observed, never complain about their clothing.

Friday there will be a circus themed set, which I think is pretty exciting.

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So, a few weeks ago I made a list of themes I hadn’t drawn for the Dames and Dandies yet and I have been gradually inching my way through the list. Today’s paper doll is one of those themes- the ninja.

I have to admit I do basically no research for this ninja paper doll outfit. Everything I know about ninja I learned watching martial-arts films in college. Most of which were subtitled from Hong Kong and only half of which I actually completely could follow the plot.

I wasn’t as much of a fan of the genre was some dear friends were.

Anyway, the films heavily influenced my ideas of what ninja might wear, though (as mentioned) there’s no historical basis of this interpretation. I also watched a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a child and this probably impacted me in strange ways.

So, I grew up watching Xena: Warrior Princess. I blame my love this old TV show for my love of totally improbable fantasy and pulpy warrior armor. I do realize that this armor would be completely useless in a fight, but that didn’t mean it doesn’t look cool and wasn’t fun to draw. This is my second set of pulpy armor and I think I should really draw some real plate armor one of these days.

For this armor, I wanted a thematic shape that could hold the whole design together and I chose this very simplified paisley/leaf motif that you’ll see on the belts on her trousers and in the pummels of the weapons. Once I had that shape, I tried to add color and create something that felt like it could be from one of the old Prince Valiant comics. I confess that I ended up thinking there was something a little East Asian in the whole design, but I can’t really explain why it feels that way to me. It certainly wasn’t my intention when I started.

Few things I should mention, I am traveling over the weekend and my life is about a crazy as it can be right now. I am really trying to avoid putting the blog on haitus as I work through the end of the semester and some major work things. So, wish me luck as I juggle flaming swords and/or herd my ducks into a corral. (My ducks are never in rows, but on good days I get them corralled.)

Meanwhile, support the blog through Patreon if you enjoy it.

And I am curious, should I draw some full plate armor for my lady and gent paper dolls? Let me know what you think in a comment.

I’ve stopped doing full paper doll sets with complex layouts, but I’ve found I missed the mix and match modern sets I used to create, specifically keeping to a limited color palette. So, I decided to create a little micro-summer wardrobe here for the A Pose paper dolls. These five pieces can all mix and match. They also share color from the Spring 2018 color report.

I love color. This should shock no one. One of my favorite things is looking at Pantones color reports each season to see what they’ve predicted for the coming season. The Spring 2018 color report had some really lovely colors in it. Ultra-violet is the Pantone 2018 color of the year. Since I love purple, I’m perfectly content with this choice. I’m not sure I buy all of Pantone’s hype about the color, but I think it’s pretty.

So, I used the Ulta-Violet color in every piece, except the pants (which I made one of Pantones suggested ‘classic’ colors) and the purse which is a very pale petal sort of mauve color. It looks white, I know, but I swear it’s a light pink. Very light pink.

I tried to be trendy as I could in these pieces. I’ve been seeing a lot of fringe on handbags and a lot of abstract, but almost tropical feeling florals. The off the shoulder top is still in, I think? And sleeve detail is still very hot. I enjoy sleeve detail, but I always worry I’m going to accidentally put a bell sleeve into my soup.

So, I’ve been having trouble coming up with things to write in these blog posts lately (I dunno why). So, I am asking for help. If you have a question they have been wanting to ask, or a topic you’re curious about, write it the comments and I’ll answer it.

Of course, you’re also welcome to just comment about today’s paper doll or any of the paper dolls. I love to hear from y’all.

When I first decided I was going to create paper dolls in period underwear, I knew it would slow down my historical paper doll dress drawing. After all, once you put a paper doll in period underwear you have to make sure that the clothing you create for the paper doll fits over whatever the period undergarments are. It’s much easier to work from the bottom layers to the top layers in paper dolls. You draw the doll and then the underwear and then whatever goes over the underwear and then you do coats or whatever.

I also knew if I was going to go to all the trouble of drawing underwear and affixing that underwear in Photoshop and printing the doll again, I was darn well going to make more than 18th century paper doll gown to go over it. After all, if I only drew one dress than the return on paper doll underwear time investment would be fairly low.

So, when I drew Alice in her 18th century underthings I drew two dresses. The first was the classic very formal gown I shared several weeks ago. Today’s 18th century paper doll gown is a lot less complex and generally seen as less formal. Today’s 18th century paper doll gown is a round gown. Round gowns were gowns that fastened in the front and had no stomacher.

But don’t be fooled, a round gown could be plenty formal if made of a sufficiently expensive fabric. The gown this dress is based off of is from The Met and is made of green Chinese silk. It’s lovely. Under the gown, she wears a chemise. The other round gown inspiration was styled this way from the FIT Museum. (They call it a Robe à l’anglaise which technically it is, but it is also a round gown. Aren’t clothing terms confusing?)

The bonnet with the dress is based on this portrait and lots of examples from my costume history collection. The matching shoes were also inspired by the Met dress, because that gown also has shoes that were made to match.

One more quick thing, if you hope over and grab 18th Century Alice, because an 18th century doll down might need an 18th century looking paper doll, the hoops will not fit under this dress. Round gowns did not have the huge wide skirts that those hoops were designed to support. So, just bare that in mind. Also the bonnet is designed to fit over Alice’s hair, I don’t know how well if would fit over the hair of any of the other A Pose paper dolls.

I’ve loved Victorian fashions for as long as I can remember. I think it was probably early paper doll exposure, but what child doesn’t see the ruffles and the puffed sleeves and think, “I want to wear something like that?”

So, for me steampunk style paper doll clothing is a natural evolution of my love of all things Victorian. I’d happily draw steampunk quasi-Victorian outfits every day. I just adore them. When I started the Dames and Dandies paper doll series back in January, I knew I’d be drawing some fashions that embraced my love of all things Victorian.

Today’s steampunk style foray consists of a pair of boots with vertical striped stockings, a skirt trimmed in pleats and a vest over a blouse. There’s also a tiny top hat and a purse to flesh out the outfit. One thing I love about steampunk style paper doll fashions is the little details- the buckles, the studs and the little pleats. Sometimes I don’t want to draw detail, but usually I enjoy the tiny things that make a paper doll outfit unique.

Don’t worry. There is a floating tab designed to help keep that tiny hat on the paper doll’s head. Everything is better with tiny top hats.

Anyway, I always love to hear from y’all, so let me know what you think of today’s paper doll set in a comment. Should I do more steampunk? Less steampunk?

On Monday, I posted some 1930s paper doll dresses and I wrote about how the 1930s just don’t “do” it for me, unless I see something that intrigues me.

This applies to other fashion themes as well. Post-apocalyptic fashions are a source of some tension for me, because after a while, you can only draw so many torn shirts. Still, I was going through my A Pose paper doll clothing and I noticed that it all felt really feminine and soft to me. So, I said to myself, the A Pose paper dolls need something a little harder and less feminine. So, the end of the world seemed like a logical thing to embrace.

I chose post-apocalyptic, because I found this great picture on Pinterest of some sort of futuristic, post-apocalyptic mechanic and I was intrigued. The mechanic part I didn’t keep, but I totally adapted her pants. I also gave them a hatchet, because sometimes you might need one and a canteen, because all the other post-apocalyptic sets have one, darn it.

I did notice that I now have a post-apocalyptic outfit for all the different poses. There’s the C pose version and a B Pose version as well. It’s almost turning into a collection, but I don’t know what I’d draw next for it, so I’m not ready to declare it a project, yet.

Since yesterday, I shared Alice in her 18th century undies, it seemed only fitting to share an 18th century paper doll dress today.

In the 18th century, there were two major dress styles (along with countless variations, but these are the two biggies). They were the Robe à la Française and the Robe à l’Anglaise. Both styles consisted of an open robe with a petticoat. The stomacher, used to fill in the upper part of the robe, and petticoat could either match the dress or be in a contrasting style. The two styles are distinguished by the backs of the dresses. The Robe à la Française has pleats in the back that fall loose from the shoulders (see this example) while the Robe à l’Anglaise has those pleats stitched down into a more fitted style (see this example). The Robe à la Française was also called the a sack back or sacque back gown.

As fashion tends to do, the Robe à la Française began it’s early existence as an informal lose garment and became increasingly complex as the years went on. Today’s 18th century paper doll dress is a Robe à la Française based on this example from the Met Museum circa 1770. The original is made from scrumptious white on white imported Chinese silk. But, given the constraints of my art style, I decided to go with a rich deep red instead for today’s 18th century paper doll dress.

The hat is earlier than the dress dating from 1760. It is based on this one. Her shoes, or mules, are based on this pair from LACMA. Those wooden soles look really uncomfortable to me. I have no idea if it was at all likely to have your garters match your shoes, but since I could I thought, ‘why not?’

This gown is designed to fit over 18th Century Alice’s underwear and hoops. I would recommend adding a floating tab to the back of the skirt if needed, as it is very wide.

I love fashion magazines, particularly People Style Watch, because it has really clear clothing photos that make it super easy to draw paper doll clothing based on the styles.

Yes, I judge fashion magazines on how easy it is to draw paper dolls based on their photos.

Anyway, one of the things I enjoy in the fashion magazines is seeing what is considered trendy in any given season. This winter two big trends have been sleeve details, folkloric florals and embroidered jeans. I love embroidery, so I am not at all upset about this trend.

Today’s A Pose paper doll clothing covers all these trends. There’s a bell sleeved sweater, a folkloric printed skirt and a pair of embroidered jeans. To accessorize each outfit, I also added a pair of ankle boots. The pattern on the jeans is based on traditional crewel embroidery designs. I’ve always loved crewel embroidery.

It’s one of those things that I feel like if I had time, I would want to learn how to do. I never seem to eke out the time to do it, though.

(Also, because I was curious, the phrase “eke out” dates back to the 1590s and means to “extend or make last longer.” Who knew it was that old?)

Anyway, this is the first contemporary fashion set for the A Pose girls dames.

Since the Dames & Dandies are a new series, one of my goals is to try to get a paper doll outfit done for the holidays. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was a child, my grandmother would send us holiday cards with paper dolls in them all the time. Here is a scan of one, I remember getting. I’m sure it says something about me that I can remember that card after 20 something years.

Anyhow, I love drawing over the top heart covered gowns for Valentine’s Day paper dolls. So, it wasn’t hard to decide to draw this one. I’ve been working on an 18th century paper doll with period underwear, so I thought I would design a dress that could go over the set of hoops. That’s how we ended up with this over the top rococo influenced Valentine’s Day paper doll dress.

By the way, I have no idea when that 18th century doll will be done. So, don’t hold your breath.